So this has been.my favorite song of OTEP's since it came out in 2004, and I always thought it was a song about a child's narrative of suffering in an abusive Christian home. But now that I am revisiting the lyrics, I am seeing something totally new.
This song could be gospel of John but from the perspective of Jesus.
Jesus was NOT having a good time up to and during the crucifixion. Everyone in the known world at the time looked to him with fear, admiration or disgust and he was constantly being asked questions. He spoke in "verses, prophesies and curses". He had made an enemy of the state, and believed the world was increasingly wicked and fallen from grace, or that he was in the "mouth of madness".
The spine of atlas is the structure that allows the titan to hold the world up. Jesus challenged the state and in doing so became a celebrated resistance figure. It also made him public enemy #1.
All of this happened simply because he was doing his thing, not because of any agenda he had or strategy.
And then he gets scourged (storm of thorns)
There are some plot holes here but I think it's an interesting interpretation.
I am here to tell you we can never meet again
Simple really, isn't it, a word or two and then?
A lifetime of not knowing where or how or why or when
You think of me or speak of me or wonder what befell
The someone you once loved, so long ago, so well
Never wonder what I'll feel as living shuffles by
You don't have to ask me and I need not reply
Every moment of my life from now until I die
I will think or dream of you and fail to understand
How a perfect love can be confounded out of hand
Is it written in the stars, are we paying for some crime?
Is that all that we are good for, just a stretch of mortal time?
Is this God's experiment in which we had no say?
In which we're given paradise but only for a day?
Nothing can be altered, oh, there is nothing to decide
No escape, no change of heart, nor any place to hide
You are all I'll ever want, but this I am denied
Sometimes in my darkest thoughts, I wish I'd never learned
What it is to be in love and have that love returned
Is it written in the stars, are we paying for some crime?
Is that all that we are good for, just a stretch of mortal time?
Is this God's experiment in which we had no say?
In which we're given paradise but only for a day?
(Is it written in the stars, are we paying for some crime?)
(Is that all that we are good for, just a stretch of mortal time?)
Is this God's experiment in which we have no say?
In which we're given paradise but only for a day?
Simple really, isn't it, a word or two and then?
A lifetime of not knowing where or how or why or when
You think of me or speak of me or wonder what befell
The someone you once loved, so long ago, so well
Never wonder what I'll feel as living shuffles by
You don't have to ask me and I need not reply
Every moment of my life from now until I die
I will think or dream of you and fail to understand
How a perfect love can be confounded out of hand
Is it written in the stars, are we paying for some crime?
Is that all that we are good for, just a stretch of mortal time?
Is this God's experiment in which we had no say?
In which we're given paradise but only for a day?
Nothing can be altered, oh, there is nothing to decide
No escape, no change of heart, nor any place to hide
You are all I'll ever want, but this I am denied
Sometimes in my darkest thoughts, I wish I'd never learned
What it is to be in love and have that love returned
Is it written in the stars, are we paying for some crime?
Is that all that we are good for, just a stretch of mortal time?
Is this God's experiment in which we had no say?
In which we're given paradise but only for a day?
(Is it written in the stars, are we paying for some crime?)
(Is that all that we are good for, just a stretch of mortal time?)
Is this God's experiment in which we have no say?
In which we're given paradise but only for a day?
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Such a wonderful song. I really love it. Can't understand why nobody has replied? I love the idea of it, how love is maybe a God's experiment, in which we're given paradise, bu only for a day. And then we suffer all our life. Makes you wonder how small and unimportant you and your feelings are in this endless universe.